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A couple of rules questions

Hello, in generall I am a lurker on here. I did have a couple of posts under anther name but I wasn't able to reset the password so created a new logon.

I am currently working on some homebrew
Mutants and Masterminds Star Wars rules. I might post them up on here is there is any interest.

I have read the rules a few times but have not played with them much so have been going over them again, and have been paying attention to some bits I haven't looked at in detail before. And I have come up with a couple of questions.

Aid
This is one I probably should have spotted before now. I had always thought that the aid action could be used with any attack. But on my last read through I noticed that is specifics that the aided character must be in melee with the target. This means that if you are in Melee you cannot aid a ranged attack, but a ranged attacker can aid someone in melee. This seems a little silly, and I was wondering if the intention is that both characters must be in melee with the target?

Long Range Sensing
This is my main question. In the Cosmic handbook and the Sense Power Profile there is an option to add the perception modifier to the communication effect. I am not sure what this means in practice however.

Adding the perception modifier for visual sense is a +2 which ups the cost to 30pp and allows the character to... do what exactly? Perceive the whole of the universe? Shift their visual perception point to anywhere they choose? I really have no clue?

Its also not clear to me if this modifier can affect sense the character has not bought with communication. It is a +5 modifier to apply perception with all senses. Is that all sense the character has bought with communication, or all the senses the character possesses? Could a character with mental communication buy visual perception with it?

I hope someone can illuminate me.

P.S. sorry for any spelling errors, I am dyslexic and my phone updated this morning and it has messed up my keyboard predictions, which normally help me quite a lot.

Re: A couple of rules questions

Originally Posted by Emanymton

Aid
This is one I probably should have spotted before now. I had always thought that the aid action could be used with any attack. But on my last read through I noticed that is specifics that the aided character must be in melee with the target. This means that if you are in Melee you cannot aid a ranged attack, but a ranged attacker can aid someone in melee. This seems a little silly, and I was wondering if the intention is that both characters must be in melee with the target?

Indeed, by the book, an Aid action can only be performed against an opponent that an ally is in melee with. It would be up to a GM whether they want to expand that. Other options include the Setup advantage or Covering Fire under Multiattack.

Originally Posted by Emanymton

Long Range Sensing
This is my main question. In the Cosmic handbook and the Sense Power Profile there is an option to add the perception modifier to the communication effect. I am not sure what this means in practice however.

Adding the perception modifier for visual sense is a +2 which ups the cost to 30pp and allows the character to... do what exactly? Perceive the whole of the universe? Shift their visual perception point to anywhere they choose? I really have no clue?

I would say that it would operate much like Communication in that you have to have a specific play to displace your sense to. Depending on how your GM interprets it, that could require some method of knowing exactly where your target is, absolutely or relative to your position. "Searching" an area would work much like with Remote Sensing (and thereby regular search rules) with it taking time on the Time and Value chart according to the area searched.

Ultimately, for your construct, your person would be able to extend their sight to a given point within the entirety of the universe and perceive using that for that sense (here, any Visual senses you have). Also, as a Communication power, you can communicate with a given receiver who can receive communication in that medium (for Visual, that might be flashing up messages across their optic nerve) if it's not blocked. It's worth noting that the Communication medium has no actual bearing on the senses used for the other person. They simply comprehend the message if they can receive that medium (the default senses do include a zero-range Mental sense that's usable for affects that target a person so that they can receive telepathy or maybe notice that someone is rummaging through their brain). Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this house rule unless it's somehow tied to the target's senses, maybe allowing you to hear what they're hearing, see what they're seeing, etc (this would, of course, require a voluntary subject).

Originally Posted by Emanymton

Its also not clear to me if this modifier can affect sense the character has not bought with communication. It is a +5 modifier to apply perception with all senses. Is that all sense the character has bought with communication, or all the senses the character possesses? Could a character with mental communication buy visual perception with it?

I would say yes. Said character could communicate with any target that can receive mental communication (for example, not robots unless they can be targeted with mind effects), and could perceive through the visual senses of the person they're contacting.

Re: A couple of rules questions

Originally Posted by FuzzyBoots

I would say that it would operate much like Communication in that you have to have a specific play to displace your sense to. Depending on how your GM interprets it, that could require some method of knowing exactly where your target is, absolutely or relative to your position. "Searching" an area would work much like with Remote Sensing (and thereby regular search rules) with it taking time on the Time and Value chart according to the area searched.

Yes, thanks that makes sense.

I was considering ways to increase the search speed and was looking over the long range search rules also in the cosmic guide*, and I realised I don't understand thise either. You read these things sometimes and you go oh OK, and then you try and apply it to an example and just go WHAT!!

The text for the search option under investigation seems clear that the search time is based on the volume of the area serached.

The text on page 25 of the cosmic handbook refers to using movement ranks to reduce the radius of the area searched. While the table for space travel on the same page refers to distance or diameter of area serached. Now distance and diameter are two very different things. Should both the text and the table just say volume?

And I dont understand the modifiers in the space travel table either. I have no idea what the 'range modifier' is applied to? At first I assumed it was a reduction to the distance rank searched but that doesn't make any sense. It would for example back it faster to search a galaxy with space travel 2 than with 3.

I am probably just being thick or have managed to miss a paragraph somewhere that explains it. But at the moment this whole section of the cosmic guide has me baffled.

* As an aside I was considering adding a modifier to increase the speed of remote viewing for search purposes.

Re: A couple of rules questions

Re: A couple of rules questions

Originally Posted by Emanymton

Yes, thanks that makes sense.

I was considering ways to increase the search speed and was looking over the long range search rules also in the cosmic guide*, and I realised I don't understand thise either. You read these things sometimes and you go oh OK, and then you try and apply it to an example and just go WHAT!!

The text for the search option under investigation seems clear that the search time is based on the volume of the area serached.

The text on page 25 of the cosmic handbook refers to using movement ranks to reduce the radius of the area searched. While the table for space travel on the same page refers to distance or diameter of area serached. Now distance and diameter are two very different things. Should both the text and the table just say volume?

And I dont understand the modifiers in the space travel table either. I have no idea what the 'range modifier' is applied to? At first I assumed it was a reduction to the distance rank searched but that doesn't make any sense. It would for example back it faster to search a galaxy with space travel 2 than with 3.

Never used those rules myself, but I'll give it a stab.

Normally, your movement speed does not impact your ability to search an area. I think the assumption is that moving quickly does not necessarily give you the ability to spot all of the area you're passing through. Quickness does allow you to rapidly search an area by reducing the search result by the ranks, whether general physical Quickness or using Rapid on senses (the latter, of course, being limited to that sense and potentially shadowed by objects in between you and what you're looking for). Yes, without a movement power, it makes things a little weird in that you can't move 200 feet in a round, but you can search a 200-foot radius in the same amount of time. Comic books, right?

What the Cosmic Handbook is proposing is that ranks in a movement power can be used like Quickness to reduce to the distances. So searching a square mile (rank 8) would normally take two hours (rank 10), but Quickness 5 would let you reduce that to four minutes (Rank 5) and they're saying that you might allow someone with Speed 5 or Flight 5 to do the same.

The Space Travel table is also very confusing, but I believe that that's the modifier for the various ranks of Space Travel. I can't quite fathom it. I think the intent is that, with Rank 2 Space travel, you'd be suffering a -5 penalty to your ability to search a galaxy, while Space Travel 3 would let you search it just fine at -0. That said, I don't quite get how we get that base DC to balance it out. "One simple solution for searching large areas or distances is to use a character’s mobility to modify the ranges first, and then apply a general modifier to the area being searched." would seem to be the operative phrasing, but I can't find a combination that makes sense to me. Based on the talk of objects "shadowing", my gut feeling is that this is not a "go to all locations in this galaxy" but a "cruise through it, scanning things" kind of setup.

Searching our solar system with Flight 15 and Space Travel 1 would start with Distance Rank 40 (to Pluto), subtract 15+1 to make it 24 (which would still take 12 years!) at a -5 penalty to your checks because you're not actually flying to all of these areas, but instead flying by and scanning. That still doesn't seem quite right to me, but it's a start.

Originally Posted by Emanymton

* As an aside I was considering adding a modifier to increase the speed of remote viewing for search purposes.

The "Rapid" modifier on Senses would probably work, being Quickness (Flaw 2: only with this sense or power), which would drop 3 units of distance on the table per rank. Although, given how Remote Senses does not suffer from "shadowing" effects, I'd probably decrease the Flaw. A -1 seems more reasonable to me, subtracting two ranks per rank.

Re: A couple of rules questions

Originally Posted by FuzzyBoots

Never used those rules myself, but I'll give it a stab.

Normally, your movement speed does not impact your ability to search an area. I think the assumption is that moving quickly does not necessarily give you the ability to spot all of the area you're passing through. Quickness does allow you to rapidly search an area by reducing the search result by the ranks, whether general physical Quickness or using Rapid on senses (the latter, of course, being limited to that sense and potentially shadowed by objects in between you and what you're looking for). Yes, without a movement power, it makes things a little weird in that you can't move 200 feet in a round, but you can search a 200-foot radius in the same amount of time. Comic books, right?

What the Cosmic Handbook is proposing is that ranks in a movement power can be used like Quickness to reduce to the distances. So searching a square mile (rank 8) would normally take two hours (rank 10), but Quickness 5 would let you reduce that to four minutes (Rank 5) and they're saying that you might allow someone with Speed 5 or Flight 5 to do the same.

Yes I agree, this seems the only posible interpretation. The reference to radius has to be a mistake.

Originally Posted by FuzzyBoots

The Space Travel table is also very confusing, but I believe that that's the modifier for the various ranks of Space Travel. I can't quite fathom it. I think the intent is that, with Rank 2 Space travel, you'd be suffering a -5 penalty to your ability to search a galaxy, while Space Travel 3 would let you search it just fine at -0. That said, I don't quite get how we get that base DC to balance it out. "One simple solution for searching large areas or distances is to use a character’s mobility to modify the ranges first, and then apply a general modifier to the area being searched." would seem to be the operative phrasing, but I can't find a combination that makes sense to me. Based on the talk of objects "shadowing", my gut feeling is that this is not a "go to all locations in this galaxy" but a "cruise through it, scanning things" kind of setup.

Searching our solar system with Flight 15 and Space Travel 1 would start with Distance Rank 40 (to Pluto), subtract 15+1 to make it 24 (which would still take 12 years!) at a -5 penalty to your checks because you're not actually flying to all of these areas, but instead flying by and scanning. That still doesn't seem quite right to me, but it's a start.

I like your thinking. The range modifier is applied to the check to find what you are looking for. The missing information seems to be how ranks of space travel allow you to search faster. Without any modifier to the speed the times involved are absurd.
What about taking the distance modifier associated with the 0 modifier on the table and subtracting that from the distance rank of the area serached. So for space travel 1 you would subtract 26, and for space travel 2 you would subtract 40 (maybe should be 41). I can't be bothered to work out space travel 3 at the moment.

So seaeching the solar system (distace rank 40) with space travel 1 would now take 4 days (40 -26+2 =time rank 16) with a -5 mod.

This is maybe too fast and it gets worse with higher levels of space travel. Level 2 would allow you to search the solar system in 30 seconds. But it should be possible to limit this in some way. In particular it would be necessary to have sensors that can process information fast enough. I would simply rule that space travel 3 ia too fast too search something as 'small' as a single star system.

Originally Posted by FuzzyBoots

The "Rapid" modifier on Senses would probably work, being Quickness (Flaw 2: only with this sense or power), which would drop 3 units of distance on the table per rank. Although, given how Remote Senses does not suffer from "shadowing" effects, I'd probably decrease the Flaw. A -1 seems more reasonable to me, subtracting two ranks per rank.